This was the sort of story that Ben had been begging Pa to tell. Could his mother be the reason Ben had always enjoyed looking at the night sky?
“Later that same week Lucy took sick.” Pa's shoulders sagged as he finished rinsing himself off. “I wanted to fetch the doc, but she said we couldn't afford it.” Pa's right hand suddenly gripped the side of the tub so hard that his knuckles turned white. “I shouldn't have listened. By the time I rode to town, it was too late.”
“There was no way you could have known,” Ben said.
“I should have gone sooner.” Pa's voice switched back to his head-cook tone, and he toweled off and dressed without another word.
After Pa left, Ben and Nevers flipped to see who got seconds in the washtub, and Ben won.
While Ben washed up, Nevers said, “It sounds like your mother was a mighty fine lady.”
“You know as much about her as I do.”
“That's not true.”
“Pa never talks like he did just now. I've got to put together bits of stories that I hear from other folks.”
“You know lots more than you realize.”
“What do you mean?” Ben frowned.
“You're her son, ain't you? Half of what you are came direct from your ma. You already know a heap more about her than any ole story could tell you.”
“So maybe I need to be looking for my answers a little closer to home?”
“You learn fast for a Minnesota boy.” Nevers tossed a towel to Ben. “And you'd better get out of that tub before icicles start forming in my bathwater.”
LOVE AND LEMON PIE
On New Year's Eve Ben got another letter. Nevers was excited when he saw the envelope. “Is that from the boardinghouse lady?” Ben nodded as he drew out a full page of Mrs. Wilson's perfect handwriting.
“Hurry up an’ read it,” Nevers said.
Dear Benjamin,
Happy New Year!
I hope that things are going well at the lumber camp. Flocks of little chickadees are visiting the bird feeder that you and your friend Nevers sent to me. I know that they appreciate your thoughtfulness as much as I do.
Winter has been uneventful here in Blackwater except for the occasional misfortune suffered by the poor lumberjacks. Another jack turned up dead yesterday. Maggie Montgomery once again had the bad luck to discover the body. She walked down the riverbank to the town water hole and bent to dip her bucket. The body, which had apparently been shoved out under the ice, bobbed right up in Maggie's face.
Poor Maggie ran shrieking all the way to our house. I tried to tease her by telling her that if she's going to keep stumbling across corpses, she may as well apply for the county coroner's job, but she seems to have lost her sense of humor. Maggie is still having heart palpitations, so I will bring her some soup this afternoon to help calm her down.
At least the jack wasn't decapitated like that sad soul they found floating in the river last spring.
Give my best to your father, and remember to say your prayers.
God bless,
Mrs. E. Wilson
P.S. That clumsy Harley just spilled stove blacking all over himself. As if I don't have enough laundry to do. I miss you, Ben.
“What's decapitated?” Nevers asked.
“Means your head's been chopped off.”
Nevers whistled. “Mrs. Wilson sure can tell a story. I wouldn'ta minded learning to read if our dusty ole school-books had been half that interesting.”
Later Ben shared Mrs. Wilson's letter with Charlie, and he had a good chuckle. “Very amusing again,” Charlie said. “Has Mrs. Wilson been a widow for long time?”
“As long as I can recall,” Ben said. “Why do you ask?”
“Just wondering. Make sure you tell her how much I admired her letter.”
As a holiday surprise on New Year's Day, Ben and Nevers asked Pa, “How about if we make special dessert for the men?”
“Hash don't qualify as dessert,” Pa said.
“We know,” Nevers said.
Ben had been talking to Charlie about the foods he missed most from England, and he'd mentioned a special treat called scones. His favorite flavor was black treacle. When he told Ben what was in the recipe, Ben found out that treacle was just another word for molasses. “And it doesn't take any more than five minutes to mix up a batch,” Charlie said.
“That's the kind of cooking we like,” Ben said.
So when the jacks sat down for their New Year's dinner, Ben and Nevers served up Charlie's black treacle scones for dessert (though after considering Charlie's reputation, the boys agreed it was best not to say where they'd gotten the recipe).
“So this is your concoction, eh?” Pa picked up one of the scones and eyed it suspiciously. “Looks kinda like a cross between a biscuit and a cookie.”
“I don't care what they look like,” said Packy, who was already finishing his second warm scone. “They're mighty tasty.”
“You're supposed to put jam on top,” Ben said.
“They don't need no jam,” Packy said, cramming a third into his mouth.
The rest of the jacks, Pa included, agreed with Packy, and they soon polished off all two hundred scones. Slim even walked up and shook Ben's and Nevers's hands. “Fine baking, boys,” he said, giving them good reason to stand taller.
Ben brought some scones to the dentist's shack, and Charlie closed his eyes and smiled when he took his first bite. “The smell of warm treacle takes me right back to the old Tyneside cottage where I was born,” he said. “I can see my mum like it was yesterday, humming as she pulled her baking pan out of the oven.”
Later, as the boys were cleaning up the dishes, Ben said, “I thought two hundred scones would be way too many.”
“Jacks can never have too much of a good thing,” Pa said. “Seeing those fellows smile reminds me of how a recipe helped me win your mother's hand.”
“Really?” Ben said.
Pa nodded. “I never thought I had a chance with Lucy Warren. She was being courted by every fellow in Itasca and Koochiching County. There were bankers and lumbermen and rich farmers calling on her all the time. A man who had a stake in a gold mine up by Rainy Lake even asked for her hand. But it was a pie that won her over.”
Nevers and Ben both frowned.
“I'm not pulling your legs, boys. After I was discharged from the army down in St. Louis, I traveled around and tried lots of jobs. Went as far west as Nevada. I finally headed north when I heard there were cooking jobs in the Blackwater Valley. My first summer in town I watched a parade of gentlemen callers stopping by the house where Lucy was boarding. I figured I didn't have a chance, but she was such a pretty gal that I couldn't help stopping by, and I brought along a lemon meringue pie.
“We sat on the porch and visited a long while. She asked me where I'd lived and what I did during the war. Most gals don't care to hear war stories, but she was impressed at how we'd volunteered our battlefield kitchen for a hospital when the docs had nowhere else to set up— a meat saw works just as good on a soldier's leg as it does on a soup bone.” Pa stopped when he saw Nevers turning pale. “Sorry, boy. I only bring it up 'cause Lucy appreciated that I'd had experiences beyond this little valley. She especially liked hearing about my silver prospecting days.”
“You were a silver miner?” Ben asked.
“I guess I never told you about that, did I?”
Ben shook his head, wondering what else Pa hadn't told him.
“Though Lucy and I had a nice talk,” Pa continued,“I was sure that my being older than the rest of the fellows who'd come courting put me at a disadvantage. But she surprised me by saying, ‘With all the young colts who have been cavorting around here, I'd forgotten how much I appreciate the company of a mature man. Most importantly, I can tell you know how to treat a woman.'
“ ‘How's that?’ I asked.
“‘You never even saw Nell walk by, did you?'
“ ‘Did Miss Nell pass?’ I asked.
“
‘She comes this way every afternoon. All the fellows study her real close, but you had your eyes on me instead.'
“But in the end,” Pa said, “I'm convinced it was the pie that did the trick. After one bite she smiled and said, ‘You certainly know how to turn a girl's head, Jack Ward. Not only are you tall, dark, and handsome, but you also bake a mighty fine pie.'
“We were married the next spring.”
“You figure these scones are good enough to get me a girl someday, Mr. Ward?” Nevers asked.
“Hard to tell,” Pa said, “but in my experience ladies are partial to pie.”
Ben smiled. Now that Pa had shared another story about Mother, maybe he'd be willing to tell some more.
Later, as they were climbing into their bunks, Ben got to thinking about what Pa had said about the war. If he'd seen shot-up soldiers lying right in his kitchen, that might explain what Mrs. Wilson had said about him carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“Was the war hard, Pa?” Ben asked.
Pa waited until Nevers had settled under his blankets before he spoke. “You'd think being a cook wouldn't be so bad.” Pa's voice was soft in the dark. “But there's nothing harder than feeding fellows when you know they're going off to die. Eat and die. That's all it was. Those boys—some no older than you and Nevers—were nothing but cannon fodder. I did my best to give 'em good food and cheer. But even as I ladled up their plates, I knew they'd be coming back all shot to pieces.” Pa's voice got even quieter. “It was thirty years ago, but I can see their faces like it was yesterday.”
Ben couldn't imagine having to live with the faces of dead soldiers frozen in your mind. That would be like Packy going off to the cut and coming back dead. Ben would be forever seeing him grinning and holding a cookie in each hand.
ONE-PLUG PRINCE AND THE TOTE-ROAD SHAGAMAW
The day after New Year's a cold front moved in. When Jiggers grumbled about the weather as he got up from breakfast, the push said, “What did you expect? This here is Minnesota, not Floreeda.”
“You should lard up your socks like I do,” Swede said, finishing off his sixth cup of blackjack. Swede's cure for cold feet was rubbing lard on his toes before he put on his socks.
“I ain't filling my boots with pig fat even if it gets to be a hundred below,” Jiggers said.
“Then you should try sprinkling pepper in your boots like I do,” Poultice Pete said.
“I ain't peppering or salting my feet, neither,” Jiggers said. “I swear, we got us a bunch a lunatics in this camp. Food belongs in a fellow's belly, not his boots.”
While Ben and Nevers were picking up the breakfast dishes, a heavy stick of firewood rolled out of the wood box and nearly smashed Nevers's foot, but he danced out of the way.
“What sort of jobs do you get in the summer?” Ben asked as he retrieved the fat chunk of oak.
“I usually hire on at a farm or a livery stable,” Nevers said. “Why you asking?”
“Seein’ how quick you dodged that stove wood, I bet you'd make a dandy log driver,” Ben said.
“You think so? I've always wondered what it'd be like to ride those logs downstream to the mill.”
“Me too.” Ben smiled.
“You suppose they'd let us sign on this spring?” Nevers grinned. “Imagine runnin’ the river all the way to Canada.”
“It'd be a lot more fun than mucking out a barn,” Ben said.
“You boys cleaning or gabbing?” Pa yelled from the storeroom. “It sounds like a ladies’ aid society meetin’ out there.”
Later that week the push finally admitted he was worried about the weather. “I hope it don't get no colder,” he said to Pa. “The jacks can stand anything, but if it drops any lower, I'll have to keep in the horses.”
That meant a day of hauling would be canceled. Even if the sawyers and skid men kept working, Ben knew that the profits of the company depended on how fast the logs could be landed on the riverbank. The push often said, “A day without hauling is money down the spillway.”
Each morning when the push stopped by for his blackjack, he and Pa talked about the cold. It was understood that the kitchen crew would keep the temperature a secret. The push said, “If those jacks knew how cold it was, they'd want every day off all winter long.”
On the morning of January second the push had thirty-five below. Even with a scarf wrapped across his face, Ben's eyelashes froze while he was driving the swingdingle. He could hear the runners of the hauling sleds squeaking from two miles away. The friction of the sleds melted away a fraction of an inch from the ice ruts, but they refroze instantly after the load passed.
Like all the teamsters, Ed Day drove his sled standing up. To keep his feet warm he stood on a gunny sack stuffed with hay laid across the front platform. On the coldest mornings Day had to hook a second team ahead of his leaders to break out his runners.
But no matter how cold the weather, Day stayed calm and kept a close eye on his team. While the rest of the fellows ran to the lunch line, Day checked each of his horses before he fed himself.
One afternoon Day was about to start his team when his leader stomped his foot and snorted.
Day said, “Sorry, Prince,” and reached into his coat pocket. “I almost forgot your lunch.” Day held out a twist of tobacco, and his horse snatched it up.
The horse chewed hungrily as Day walked back to his sleigh. Ben couldn't believe his eyes. He'd seen the jacks get ornery when the pencil pusher ran short of snuff, or snooze, as Swede called his “Norwegian gunpowder,” but he'd never heard of a horse that had a tobacco chewing habit.
When Day saw Ben, he said, “I call him Prince Albert 'cause he's got a taste for tobacco. He prefers Peerless, but he'll take a plug of Climax if he has to. I expect he'd smoke a pipe if I lit one for him. Some of the boys call him One-Plug, since he won't pull worth a darn until he gets his daily ration.” Day took his wide-legged driving stance and picked up his reins. “I'd normally sell off a finicky animal like him, but I never have seen his equal when it comes to hauling.”
Ben grinned as he finished loading the frozen dishes onto the swingdingle. He could imagine Prince puffing on a pipe as he pulled the sled to the landing.
On Sunday afternoon Ben and Nevers headed down to the bunkhouse to visit. The cold spell had been making Pa and the rest of the jacks so crabby that the day before, when Ben had had to go to the clerk's shack, Wally's usual grumpy mood hadn't even bothered him. Ben had asked Wally,“How early in the spring do you hire your log drivers?” but the clerk had only said, “That depends.” Ben had also been trying his best to get Pa to tell another story about his mother, but Pa was back to his old silent self.
“How can it be so sunny and still be cold?” Nevers asked as he hunkered down in his mackinaw on their way to the bunkhouse.
When Ben stepped into the bunkhouse, the hot smell of the stove mingled with woodsmoke and wet wool. “Hang your caps and mitts on the line, boys,” Windy said.
“I lost one of the wool liners for my mitts,” Nevers said.
“You must've been robbed by a tote-road shagamaw.”
“What's that?” Nevers asked.
“Haven't you ever heard of a shagamaw?”
Ben and Nevers both shook their heads.
“Any time you lose something made out of wool—a hat, mitten, or even a mackinaw—that means a tote-road shagamaw has snatched it up. Wool is their main diet, but you never see one 'cause they're so shy. They have bear paws in front and moose hooves in back, and they switch from one set to the other so often you can't track them down.”
Ben knew Windy was teasing, but Nevers said, “Really?”
“A buddy of mine back in Michigan was following some moose tracks one day. All of a sudden the tracks changed to bear prints. He stopped and scratched his head. The tracks kept switching from moose to bear every quarter mile. Then they turned due north at a witness tree. Not only was that shagamaw following the section lines, he was changing his walking sty
le every quarter mile. He'd been following timber cruisers and had copied their style of pacing out square sections of timber. But being that the shagamaw is low on brainpower, he could only count as high as four hundred and forty steps before he had to start over.”
Ben looked at the other fellows. There wasn't a hint of doubt on any of their faces. In fact, Windy's talk of hungry wool-eating critters caused several men to check the clothesline to make sure all their things were there.
When Ben and Nevers walked back to the cookshack, it was even colder than before. “It feels like winter ain't never gonna end,” Nevers said.
“It'll be worth the wait when spring comes and we're riding a stick of pine down a white-water rapids.”
“Only if the push and that crazy clerk'll sign us on.”
“They will,” Ben said.
“And if your pa lets you go.”
“I'll work on him when the time comes,” Ben said, hoping that his bold talk would actually come true.
WEATHER BOY
“Doggone it, Jack,” the push said as he sat down for his midmorning cup of blackjack the next day, “I wish thermometers had never been invented.”
“What'd she read this morning?” Pa asked.
“Twenty-nine below. And by the look of that clear sky, we're headed for colder.”
Ben couldn't help asking, “What good is it to hate thermometers? It's gonna get just as cold whether you know the temperature or not.”
Pa and Nevers turned and stared. The minute Ben saw their faces, he knew he was in trouble. When was he going to learn to stop blurting things out?
“You keep your nose—” Pa started.
“That's all right, Jack,” the push said. “I like a boy who speaks his mind. If this cookee likes thermometers so much, maybe we should make him our weather boy.”
Blackwater Ben Page 10
